Al-1701 wrote: ↑Sat May 28, 2022 4:39 pm
Can I just gripe about the Gorn here for a moment.
First: Why are they parasitic breeders? There are no parasitic reptiles (though science fiction seems to confuse reptiles with wasps in this regard frequently). The closest analogue to the Gorn would be monitor lizards, which feed on insects which are high in protein and fat.
Which brings me to my second point: Assuming they are parasitic breeders, they obviously did not evolve using life forms from other planets to do so. Which means they used some kind of animal native to their homeworld. So, why are they hunting aliens and not just raising whatever they use back home? Sapient life is a terrible food source. Eating someone when you kill them in situ is one thing where it's perfectly good meat if you have no compunction about eating a sapient being, but to capture, transport, and keep alive sapient life is a lot of effort for not a lot of nutritional value. This leaves us to believe the Gorn only do this for the sake of being barbarians.
Which brings me to my final point: The whole point of the Gorn was that they are intelligent beings who come from a civilization that has just as much right to exist as anyone else. The Gorn as presented here are a scourge on the galaxy, and no one would shed a tear if someone came along and glassed their homeworld.
This isn't a "I'm not going to watch anymore" thing, but it does bug me. The Gorn were kind of ignored for all this time, and we have this collection of ill-conceived space lizard tropes replacing them.
Strangely, the writer says that Laan is just 100% wrong. It's just that it's a decade before the Federation does reach out and view the Gorn as more than monsters.
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/s ... -explained
Perez also notes that La’an’s feelings about the Gorn are intended to reference Kirk’s actions in “Arena,” albeit in a roundabout way. In “Memento Mori,” La’an says, “The Federation teaches that if we can find a way to empathize with an enemy, they can one day become our friends. They’re wrong. Some things in this universe are just plain evil.”
And yet, in “Arena,” Kirk famously refuses to murder a Gorn, proving to the Metrons that human beings are capable of incredible empathy. It’s a classic Trek moment that gets an interesting twist in Strange New Worlds.
“It’s a nice bookend thematically with ‘Arena,’” Perez explains. “La’an says this because of her history with the Gorn. We’re a long way from that lesson right now.”
Al-1701 wrote: ↑Sat May 28, 2022 6:15 pm
Still feels off to see the Gorn doing these acts of horrific violence. Cestus III was them removing what they saw as an invasion of their territory.
Yeah, Laan thinks they're expanding their territory. It would have been more interesting to make it clear this is their territory to begin with.
But they can't step too much on Arena's toes. The fact they are aware of the Gorn to begin with is shaky since Kirk acts like it was the first time he had ever so much as heard of a Gorn.
Al-1701 wrote: ↑Sun May 29, 2022 11:53 am
But they can't step too much on Arena's toes. The fact they are aware of the Gorn to begin with is shaky since Kirk acts like it was the first time he had ever so much as heard of a Gorn.
I'm fine with soft-retconning the Gorn's presence or knowledge about them, since Enterprise's In a mirror darkly already reintroduced them, so it's not out of question for them being enountered before, but with only limited exposure, like the Romulans. What's inexcusable is making them a race of quasi cannibalistic, parasitic xenomorphs.
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Al-1701 wrote: ↑Sat May 28, 2022 6:15 pm
Still feels off to see the Gorn doing these acts of horrific violence. Cestus III was them removing what they saw as an invasion of their territory.
Yeah, Laan thinks they're expanding their territory. It would have been more interesting to make it clear this is their territory to begin with.
A weak episode this week. Baby's first mashup of Balance of Terror and Disaster, with some completely unnecessary "grr rargh we savage mindless monsters, kill each other for not being cartoon gigachads, eat hew-mons for fun, we pure evil" bullshit for the Gorn.
In Arena, they were asshole ultranationalists, but come on. This is just cartoonish.
Still way better than discovery and Picard simply because a weak and uneven mashup of two good episodes is better than being force-fed sewage or watching Jurati Sue be Speshul.
I have a feeling the writers might retcon what La'an experienced about the Gorn by making these Gorn just an extremist faction that is just more brutal than the rest of the Gorn civilization, maybe one that used genetic engineering to become stronger but instead became more like the Magog (probably to handwave the different Gorn eyes), which would also handwave why their ships are different. Sort of what they did to the Klingorcs. I notice some similarities to the plot from S4 of Dis with Booker hating Species 10-C at first because they killed everyone he knew, before he stops hating them, because it was all a misunderstanding. Though the writers might subvert this one as well in some way.
As a side note, I find it amusing how the Gorn now make hoof-like sounds as opposed to the growling noises they made in TOS and ENT. Maybe these Gorn use horses when invading other planets.
Worffan101 wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 4:18 pm
In Arena, they were asshole ultranationalists, but come on. This is just cartoonish.
Well look at the other modern series, when there's asshole ultranationalists, they're eating somebody.
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BridgeConsoleMasher wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 4:06 pm
Private property is theft to begin with.
Which means it's okay to eat Federation citizens.
Mabus wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 5:05 pm
I have a feeling the writers might retcon what La'an experienced about the Gorn by making these Gorn just an extremist faction that is just more brutal than the rest of the Gorn civilization
I wouldn't be surprised if La'an is also someone who remembers things differently from what actually happened because, well, trauma does that.
